Hello I'm Anthea Cayetano and I'm the first year Coordinator in the Bachelor
of Paramedic Science. I am here to facilitate the transition of
all students into our degree. I will make sure that
you are fully prepared to study that you build a solid foundation of
both academic and clinical skills and knowledge throughout your entire first year
and that you'll be able to do your best to succeed. This is a responsibility
that I am honored to have and one that is really well suited to me as I am
actually a graduate of this very degree myself.
This degree prepared me so well for an internship with SA Ambulance Service and
I have now been a qualified paramedic working for
over 10 years with them. So now you're sitting there and thinking
well why should I study a Bachelor of Paramedic Science?
And if knowing what to do when you're the first on the
scene at a medical or traumatic emergency
isn't inspiring enough, I've got lots of other reasons for you as well. There is
nothing more rewarding than a career as a paramedic
and you will be a highly trained healthcare professional, you will know
how to conduct a lot of complex clinical assessments and treatment
interventions and you will be asked to do that without anybody questioning
you. This degree is suitable for anybody who genuinely
wants to help people. the whole role of the paramedic is to
really make people feel safe another reason to study the Bachelor of
Paramedic Science here at Flinders University
is that it is a great gateway to the graduate entry program
to study Medicine at Flinders. furthermore to this you could also then
go on to study other courses as well so you could
choose to do the Graduate Diploma and Intensive
Care Paramedic Studies or any of the traditional pathways
through an extra research project, so it really opens doors.
So the job is definitely not your typical Monday to Friday nine to
five. You will revel in the freedom of shift work believe me,
it can be freeing but it also means that you will be working at times when nobody
else is so you will be called to solve problems
when no one else knows what they can do. When the other healthcare services are
closed for the day and when there's just nobody around to
sort out the problem. The scope of paramedic practice is
expanding exponentially, no longer are we just ambulance drivers
rushing people to hospital in fact we are there to bridge the gap
in the areas of the healthcare system that
are extremely under-resourced. However don't be worried there still is
our special operations team and our Rescue Retrieval Paramedics that
are required if abseiling down cliffs and jumping out
of helicopters is more your thing. So you may come to us with no knowledge
of the human body and no first aid skills at all and by
the end of your first semester with us you will be assessing treating and
managing a patient in cardiac arrest. It's safe to say that you won't waste
any time in any of the topics that you study with us.
The ability to obtain information, decipher it, distill it
and evaluate it for credibility is something that we all need in life
but it's a fundamental academic skill that you will also get within our degree.
There are other opportunities that follow on from graduating from the
Bachelor of Paramedic Science where you can go on to study a
postgraduate courses, traditional research methods
through honours and Masters and PhD or a clinical focus into our Graduate
Diploma of Intensive Care Paramedic Studies so it really opens doors.
We have a rigorous quality improvement process that we undergo regularly, where we
will utilise all of our teaching experts, our industry partners and other
specialists in the field as well as student representatives to
come together and evaluate and critique the course.
We want to be making sure that we are giving you the best product
that's going to serve you. We are all about scaffolding all of the
skills and the knowledge that you are obtaining
and building upon that so you get true
learning and not just memorising things. So in your first year you're going to
learn all about what's normal. So what is normal functioning for
the human body so your anatomy and physiology
and some basic clinical assessment and treatment techniques.
In second year we're going to build upon that and look at what can go wrong so
pathophysiology; what happens to the body when things are
wrong and what can we do about it and you'll learn more advanced
techniques for clinical assessment and intervention.
And then in third year we really tie it back to the real world
focus so we're going to add in the complexities of real life;
that's your moral, legal and ethical issues, your complex patients
and just the extra issues that come along with dealing with
all members of society so you will be undertaking your clinical simulation
scenarios in front of your classmates right from the very beginning of your
first week. In this way we are truly accurately reflecting on
ourselves and our own abilities and working within teams and this helps
to build that culture and your understanding of your place within it
for a patient-focused outcome. And that's what paramedics are all about we are
patient focused; what we do is for the patient.
So you are going to learn how your role fits within that to make sure that you
can carry on and be a part of that culture.
And you can demonstrate your competency these
clinical simulation scenarios that replicate a real paramedic job from
start to finish from dispatch to handover of patient
and everything that goes on in between that. We have a strong working
relationship with SA Ambulance Service and all of our
students undertake placements right from the very beginning of their
first few weeks with us in the degree. You will undertake your
placements in both metropolitan and regional locations throughout South
Australia and this really helps to give you the
best perspective of what life can be like as a Paramedic.
There's also an opportunity to undertake international placements with many
students signing up for this and we also have and other pathways for
interstate students who want to study here with us at Flinders.
All of our Flinders University graduates are eligible for employment
in any Ambulance Service in Australia and New Zealand
not only this but we have also established pathways
with international providers including National Health Service providers in the
UK where our students have been offered
firm provisional offers of employment before they even
finish the end of their third year. And in this way you can understand that
London Ambulance Service has been a highly sought after and popular choice
for our graduates for the last few years. We've also just recently established a
Service in North America and part of this recruitment process
includes a three-week placement opportunity at the beginning
of your third year in the various locations throughout
North America, with again a provisional job offer before you've
even graduated. Paramedics is definitely a growth
industry in terms of employment with occupation projections continuing
to rise yearly. From week one you will be getting your
hands on actual paramedic kits with replica medications, you will have
high fidelity mannequins that are giving you
fidelity mannequins that are giving you
competency and our standardised patients really
bring to life our simulations. We also have an ambulance as well as a
specially designed car wreck vehicle that comes apart in the same way that
vehicles are cut open to access road trauma victims we
have a dedicated simulation space where students can book in whenever they feel
like it to consolidate skills and practice
simulations. Our academic team members are also some
of the best in the field; a lot of your lecturers will be
practising Paramedics like myself and the rest will be experts in their
field. All of the academic staff are also active researchers in either clinical
fields or in teaching so you know that we have
all of the educational aspects covered when it comes to paramedic education.
We have field days and multi-casualty incident
exercises where we will actually take all of our equipment and our students
out into the real world. We won't just be sitting around in a
perfectly environmentally controlled classroom but we're going to put you out
there in the environment of which you will actually be working in.
We have a really solid peer mentoring program that will introduce you
to the really strong team focus that we have with our student cohort
that echoes the paramedic culture of everybody having each other's back.
We want you to have a really long and happy
career as a Paramedic and we want you to be
healthy and happy Paramedic students whilst you're spending your time here
with us studying. Wellness is a well-established
core principle in our degree and we cover that in many
different ways. We know that you will be exposed to
aggression and violence when you're out on placement and definitely whilst
you're out there practising as a Paramedic.
We're going to teach you how to look after yourself and keep yourself safe
right from the first year. Further to this we also have a strong bond
with the peer support process with SA Ambulance Service,
which links in with the health and counselling services provided by
Flinders University. So in this way we are making sure that
you are absolutely safe and protected whilst you're out on
your placements but also recognising that coming to university
and balancing life and work and study as well is
challenging. I'm going to make sure that you have all the skills to get through
this and to thrive. We want you to look back on your time here at Flinders
University with fond and happy memories that you
have built a solid foundation for your future career as a Paramedic. I
can't emphasise enough how amazing the opportunity is to study
the Bachelor of Paramedic Science here at Flinders University.
We have so much to offer you and we can't wait for you to join the team.